Lonely Hearts

Harry

I knew that I should have been replying to all my emails at that moment, but in truth, I was more caught up in making sure that I had everything covered for Winnie for the next few months.

I had no idea how my sister had managed to take care of her by herself for so long. Sure, I had seen the struggle when she had first had her, but I’d had no idea just how much it was going to take out of me on a day-to-day basis.

Jesus Christ, the stress of it all. The running around trying to make sure that everything fell into place, that all the bits and pieces came together at just the right moment and just the right time to be sure that everything worked out. She did band and played soccer after school, and that meant I had to make sure there was always someone there who could pick her up and take her home—whether it was Yara, me, or one of the sitters I practically had on twenty-four hour call right now.

My sister had worked her ass off to get Winnie this far in life, and it was the least I could do to pick up where she left off. I didn’t know how she had managed to keep her head above water all alone for those first seven years—before the accident.

Winnie’s father had tapped out a long time ago, and we hadn’t heard from him since, which was why I was next on the list to step up to the paternal role for her when the time came. I wondered if he ever thought about his daughter.

We knew that he was aware of the pregnancy, but that hadn’t been enough to stop him from hitting the road as soon as he got the chance to get out of there. I knew that, as a big brother, I should have tracked him down and beat him up, but my sister needed me by her side to help her look after her daughter more than she needed me to launch a cross-country campaign to get this asshole to step up and do his job.

My sister was everything to that little girl. I still didn’t know how I could possibly compare. I could see the grief in Winnie every once in a while, but she always did her best to cover it up. We had gotten her in therapy sessions as soon as we could, but that was the best we could do. I couldn’t force her to open up, couldn’t force her to engage with anyone about this.

It would all happen on her own time, I was told, and I would just have to be there for her when it happened. Which I would be. I was going to be with her any way that I could.

The door to my office sprang open, and I quickly clicked away from the calendar I had been looking at and back to the reports I was meant to be going over. I fucking ran the company. I knew that there was nobody who could tell me off for not working, but still, old habits died hard.

Yara was standing in the doorway, and she clapped her hands together.

“So,” she announced, kicking the door shut so hard it practically clattered in the doorframe. “You remember when I said I was going to sign you up for that lonely-hearts thing?”

I cocked my head at her. “No.”

“Well, the good news is that you’ve got a date from it,” she replied cheerfully.

I laughed and shook my head. “You’re joking, right?” I asked her

She shrugged. “Does it seem like I’m joking?”

I gazed at her for a long moment, scanning her eyes for any hint that she was just joking around, and I sighed heavily when I realized that she was telling the truth.

“Yara, I don’t have time to date right now,” I told her. “You know that. With Winnie and the business—”

“You’ve got a lot of excuses to keep pretending you don’t want to get back out there,” she said, finishing my sentence for me. “But I’m not going to let you keep hiding anymore, all right? You’re a damn catch. I want you to get out there and meet the woman of your dreams already. Then at least we can have something to gossip about.”

“I’m not going out with someone just because you want something to gossip about,” I told her. I couldn’t help but smile at how certain she was that this was the right way to go about it. She was always pushing me out of my comfort zone. It was one of the things that made her such a good PR woman, I guessed.

“Okay, hear me out,” she replied, hopping into the seat opposite my desk. “You were on that hot bachelors list recently, yeah?”

“I really have no idea—”

“Well, it’s my job to have an idea, so trust me when I say that you were,” she said. “And I think it would be good publicity for the company if you were to lean into that a little, get out there, and start dating, you know?”

“So you’re saying I need to do this for the sake of the company?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Look, I’m just saying, I think that you need to step out of your comfort zone a little bit. You can’t just keep holding back, right? I know that you’ve been occupied with Winnie, but she wouldn’t want you putting your life on hold for her, not forever.”

“It’s still so soon—”

“And it’s just one date,” Yara pointed out, holding up a single finger to emphasize the point. “One date! What’s the worst that could happen?”

“She could fall in love with me and never leave me alone again.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” she replied, flashing me a smile. “Come on. I know the old bachelor version of you is in there somewhere! What do you say?”